Experiencing “Good” Friday and Holy Saturday

Here then is a fantastic video about Good Friday that uses no words. Created by SparkHouse for their line of Sunday School curriculum called Holy Moly. It is meant to be shown to and with children. But I think you’ll find it speaks powerfully to all ages. I know it moves me. (Disclosure: I’ve done some paid consulting work for other SparkHouse projects, but not Holy Moly.)

Once you’ve watched that, you may need some time in silence. That is what Holy Saturday is for: experiencing the silence of the tomb. It was real for Jesus; it is real for us. The United Methodist Worship blog offers this incredible resource for silence on Holy Saturday. Here’s a taste:

This is the silence of the tomb, or perhaps more accurately, the silence from the tomb. This is the silence that grabs us, if we are paying attention at all, when we contemplate the aftermath of the crucifixion.

This is what Holy Saturday has been about for centuries in the liturgical life of the Church. It is this silence, embodied in an assembly. It is the ultimate silence. The horror of the execution and our role in it was the day before. Facing the violence head on as we do and must on Good Friday also tends to move us into a kind of alternate reality removed from the usual patterns of our lives and thoughts. We can be tricked into thinking it was all just a horrible dream.

But on this day, on Holy Saturday, there is no question left. [read the rest]

Perhaps, like me, after you watch the video below and pray through the silence of the Holy Saturday litany, you’ll find yourself longing for more. Longing for conversation about these days leading up to Easter, ideas about Jesus’ death that do not turn God into a monster who somehow requires the death of “his” own child.

If so, I highly recommend spending some time with the conversation Tony Jones is curating at Why A Crucifixion? There you will “read what progressive Christian bloggers from around the blogosphere have to say about the meaning and significance of Jesus dying on a cross.”

It is in allowing ourselves to experience the events of Friday and Saturday that we become truly ready to know the exuberant joy of resurrection on Easter morning.